HealthCare marketing has always been about connecting with your patients in the right place and at the right time. Today, that means you need to meet them where they are already spending most of their time: on the internet.

Studies show that people are spending twice as much time online as they were just 12 years ago, with the average adult spending more than 20 hours online per week. This means that digital marketing channels such as websites, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and search engine optimization (SEO) are more important than ever before. It also means if you don’t yet have a digital marketing strategy in place that incorporates all these activities, you could be missing out on hundreds – even thousands – of potential patients every year.

Not convinced? Here are 3 more reasons why you should make digital an integral part of your marketing strategy:

1. The latest research shows that more than 80 percent of the U.S. population has at least one social networking profile. This means that having an active social media presence for your healthcare practice has become almost as important as having a website. While there are several platforms to choose from (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest to name just a few), they all have one thing in common: they provide an easy and efficient way for you to interact and engage with your patients and have become a very viable way to find new patients and engage with them socially online.

2. More than 50 percent of millennials search online for health information and rely on online patient reviews before choosing a new healthcare provider, according to this survey. The global average for all patients was almost 60 percent. And this number is expected to continue to grow. This means that every healthcare practice – including yours – needs to be proactively managing, monitoring, and amplifying their online reputation.

3. One of the nicest things about digital marketing is that everything is measurable. When running any type of program – from SEO, PPC to social media to email marketing – you know how many people saw your campaign, visited your website, and contacted you for more information or to book an appointment. Paid search placement, in particular, works well with other online marketing channels. It lets you know which keywords are a good fit for your website. It drives patients to your website.It helps you get more email sign-ups to enrich your email marketing campaigns. And you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, which provides a very clear return on investment (ROI).

The online world is extremely competitive, so good digital marketing results may take time. The good news though, is that companies like iHealthSpot offer a full range of online marketing services, providing the expertise and experience that you need to create a digital marketing strategy that will help you grow your practice.

If you are interested in learning more, contact us today, toll-free at (877) 709-0999 for your FREE consultation with our experts today!

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How the Face of Healthcare Marketing is Changing to Digital

Patients today do extensive research online, which means they are more particular about the healthcare services they receive. As they gain more knowledge about these services, they are also increasingly expecting personal engagement – e.g., more transparency and two-way communication – with their healthcare providers. In response, healthcare marketing is becoming more digital.

Here are three digital marketing strategies you should use to improve patient engagement for your healthcare practice:

Search Engine Optimization

Online search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! drive visitors to websites. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website so that it shows up on the first page of an online search for the keywords specific to your specialty. When it comes to online search: if you are on the second page, you don’t exist. And if you don’t exist, patients can’t find you.

You can leverage hundreds of strategies to help search engines recognize and rank your digital content, including tagging a page with relevant keywords, writing informative page descriptions, and creating strategic HTML titles. The process can be complex and incredibly frustrating if you aren’t familiar with the various ways to make your website rank better for your target audience. However, it’s worth it if you want to grow your healthcare practice, as you want your online content front and center when someone searches for a relevant health topic. Still not sure? Here are The 8 Reasons Why You Need SEO.

Social Media Engagement

Increased patient engagement has been linked to better adherence to medical plans, reduced hospitalization, and higher revenues. However, to effectively engage with your patients, you need to meet them where they spend their time – which is increasingly on social media. Patients trust healthcare providers that engage online. In fact, recent studies have found that more than half of consumers’ decisions to receive treatment at a healthcare facility are strongly influenced by that provider’s social media connections.

A healthy social media presence helps attract patients. In addition, it enables healthcare practitioners to network with their peers, share knowledge, and work together (with the potential of improving patient outcomes). Social media strategies can go beyond simple posts and include participating in discussions, networking, and promoting information about relevant health topics. Learn more about The Role of Social Media in Patient Engagement.

Mobile Responsiveness

Every day, the number of devices and browsers that need to work with your website grows, with millions of users turning to their mobile phones and tablets to interact online. In the U.S., four out of every five Americans own and use a smartphone, and this trend will continue as sales of mobile devices continue to rise. That’s why it’s critical to provide patients with easy access to your information, from any device they want to use, with a responsive website.

Responsive websites deliver an optimized experience on any type of device, regardless of screen size or resolution. This means your online content will be perfectly displayed for every smartphone, tablet and desktop computer, ensuring your patients have an optimal viewing experience. In addition, responsive sites generate a higher search engine ranking which, as mentioned above, is key to ensuring your website shows up on the first page of an online search. For more details, check out our previous post: What Is Responsive Web Design Anyway?

While these three digital marketing strategies help drive patient engagement, they also offer a big benefit for healthcare providers: marketing measurability. When running any type of digital marketing program – from search engine optimization (SEO) to social media – you always know how many people saw your campaign, visited your website, and contacted you to book an appointment. This provides valuable insight into your marketing Return on Investment (ROI), which helps guide your future business plans and marketing budgets.

iHealthSpot is a full-service digital marketing partner that can support the unique needs of your healthcare practice. From award-winning medical website design and proprietary patient education content to online marketing including social media, we enable medical practitioners to market themselves using proven digital marketing strategies.

Healthcare Marketing in 2018: Emerging Trends

In a previous blog, we discussed how important it is to make digital an integral part of your healthcare marketing strategy. However, as digital marketing continues to evolve at such a rapid pace, it can be difficult to keep up with the various technologies and tools available today. To help you stay up to date, here are some key trends you should consider as you make your healthcare marketing plans:

More Content = More Patients

Patients today do a considerable amount of online research before visiting a healthcare practitioner. This means that before a patient decides to contact you, they will search your website (and increase your social media accounts) for valuable and relevant information. If you want to market to them effectively, your website needs to provide as much specialty-specific educational information as possible. And with today’s increased competition for people’s attention, this content needs to be authoritative, interesting and share-worthy. The more medically reliable, easy-to-understand information you can provide, the more you will build engagement – and trust – with your future patients.

Social Engagement is Key

Social media is no longer a trend, it’s a way of life. Every minute of every day, there are 900,000 Facebook logins, 452,000 tweets sent and 46,200 Instagram posts (Source: Business Insider). And every post and tweet provides you with a way to connect with patients, as well as establish online relationships that help build trust and credibility. Done well, social media can boost awareness of your practice and generate new patients. The good news is it’s not complicated. However, you do need to create compelling healthcare content that is shareable, fresh, unique and – most importantly – attracts their attention.

Personalize Your Content

Technology is enabling a new generation of online marketing delivery systems that enable you to identify patient interests and deliver timely and relevant content on a one-to-one basis. For example, you can now retarget display ads to individuals who indicate and interest in your website or use marketing automation to create user profiles that help you to send personalized messaging. This “customized” content is more attention getting and generates greater interest and response because patients want to be treated like a person vs a number. Personalizing content for your patients is no longer a nice to have, it’s a must have.

Optimize for Mobile

If your website isn’t mobile-friendly yet, then it should be! In the U.S., four out of every five Americans own and use a smartphone, and this trend will continue as sales of mobile devices continue to rise. That’s why it’s critical to meet the needs (and expectations) of your patients and provide them with easy access to you with either a responsive website or mobile medical website. Both options ensure patients have an effortless online engagement with you. And both options now earn higher rankings in search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

Medical professionals work with iHealthSpot because they know they need a full-service digital marketing partner that can support the unique needs of their healthcare practice while staying up-to-date on the latest marketing trends and technologies. From award-winning medical website design and proprietary patient education content to online marketing including social media, we enable medical practices to market themselves using proven digital marketing strategies.

Healthcare Marketing: Do Online Directories Actually Matter?

You’ve worked hard to build awareness of your healthcare business in your local community, but have you invested in building that awareness online?

While business directories, and online business directories in particular, aren’t the “sexiest” form of marketing, they are an integral part of a successful digital marketing program for any healthcare practice. This is because they continue to play a significant role in the research that patients conduct when searching for a new healthcare provider – 85% of consumers use the internet to find local businesses! The fact is, your healthcare practice needs an online presence to get found. And showing up in a patient’s online search results gives you a huge advantage over other medical professionals in the area.

General online business directories are a great place to start listing your medical practice. By linking your website to these types of business listings, you’ll see a significant boost in website traffic and, as you know, more views typically lead to more patients. Once search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing see a link from an online directory to your practice’s site, they’ll consider you “reputable” and will accordingly push your website up in the search rankings. Also, don’t forget to include a “local” element by having your practice listed under your suburb. Many people prefer to know that their healthcare provider is nearby, staffed by local people, and caring for the local community.

In addition to general directories, you will also want to list your practice on healthcare-related directories, such as WebMD.com, Healthgrades.com, and Vitals.com. These types of sites are directories, as well as online resources for information about symptoms, general wellbeing, and health news. They all have millions of regular site visitors every year so, similar to general online business directories, they’ll help increase both your website traffic and search engine ranking. As many of these sites also offer reviews, you’ll want to monitor them on a regular basis to ensure you’re managing (and keeping control of!) your online reputation.

The good news: online directories don’t require you to be particularly “tech savvy”, and they’re easy and cheap (often free!) to set up. However, they do pose one challenge. Writing content for an online healthcare directory is different that writing for your own website. You have a limited amount of space, which means the content you create needs to make an impact and it has to create a good impression – quickly.

In addition, it’s important that your business information is listed consistently for all online directories and that you have a keen eye for detail when submitting your content. Details as minor as the formatting of your phone number, how your office hours are entered, and whether you use, for example, DPM on one site and D.P.M. on another can lead to conflicts within your local business listings, and confusion for potential patients.

Online directories are an important, and often overlooked part of any healthcare marketing strategy. iHealthSpot offers a full range of online marketing services, providing the expertise and experience that you need to create online directory listings that will help you grow your practice. If you are interested in learning more, contact us today, toll-free at (877) 709-0999 for your FREE consultation with our experts today!

New Report: Digital Marketing Trends of Highly Successful Businesses

Adobe released their 2015 digital marketing report last month highlighting the latest trends marketers are using to reach customers online. As a leading online marketing firm for physicians and the healthcare industry, iHealthSpot is in the “elite 19%” of companies that are described in the report.

At iHealthSpot, having a plan for digital marketing that incorporates web analytics allows us to know what works and doesn’t work. This applies to our own marketing strategy as well as our clients’. Our success depends on having talented people, well-defined processes, and the right tools – another key trait of the elite 19.

An iHealthSpot website is much more than just a url. We address all aspects of being online, including search engine optimization and marketing. For example, an iHealthSpot website can attract new patients and offer them ways to interact with your practice online. An iHealthSpot website can also increase awareness and engagement with the community you serve. We work with individual physicians and groups as well as clinics, hospitals, and other healthcare institutions.

In reality, the majority of businesses (45%) told Adobe they do not have a digital marketing strategy in place. Another 36% of businesses said their plan for digital marketing was not intentionally designed to achieve greater “digital maturity.”

Digital maturity is the grown-up version of online marketing. Companies who are digitally mature, or are aiming for maturity, have an open mind. They are willing to establish new processes and new roles to achieve their goals. When is the last time you tried something new?

“All marketing organizations evolve over time. Whether that change is successful in the long run depends on whether it’s planned or reactionary.”

What else makes the 19% different from the rest? Their approach to mobile.

In April 2015, Google awarded higher search engine rankings to websites that are mobile-friendly. The elite 19 also regard mobile as a must-have component of a digital marketing strategy, with 34% of survey respondents saying they market to customers who use a mobile device. Some of the most digitally mature companies are customizing the mobile experience for individual users.

Responsive website design (websites that automatically scale to your screen size) is another must-have for the digitally mature. This is a no-brainer. If patient satisfaction is a top priority, then you want them to have a positive experience with your practice in the office and online. Without a responsive website, you may be sending patients a bad impression.

If your marketing strategy for the next 12 months doesn’t include a hefty dose of digital marketing, it’s time to rethink it. Would an upgraded website better serve your customers? Do you offer patients the flexibility to pay bills online or request appointments? Perhaps it’s time to try social media marketing; after all, there are nearly 1.5 billion people on Facebook.

More than 40% of businesses are increasing their advertising budget for mobile, social media, and content management in 2015.

“In the midst of adapting to a new world of digital marketing, the companies with the planned approach remember to keep the customer first—not only responding to customer wants and needs, but trying to keep ahead of what the customer is likely to want and need tomorrow.”

If you still need a mobile website, or if you haven’t upgraded yet to a responsive design, contact a sales rep at iHealthSpot for a free quote. With our help, we can take your digital marketing plan to the next level. Call today.

5 Top Tips for Marketing Your Medical Practice

If you’re looking for better ways to promote your medical practice, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed: search engine marketing, social media, blogs, direct mail…the options can seem endless. To help make it easier, here are five of our top tips for marketing your medical practice:

Build a Website for Your Practice

If you want to attract new patients, you’ll need to market yourself online – and to do this, you need a professional-looking website. More than 70% of adults in the U.S. search for health information online. This means you need a responsive site that looks good on any type of device, from computer to tablet to mobile phone. It also means that your site content needs to be written in a way that helps build trust in your healthcare practice.

Engage Your Patients with Email Marketing

Email isn’t just a way to send routine information like appointment reminders. You can – and should – be using it to communicate with patients, even when they don’t need to visit your office regularly. Your email messages can be about anything, from a monthly Health Tip, to a quarterly eNewsletter, to an announcement about an upcoming event. And with a low-cost email marketing platform like Constant Contact or MailChimp, you can easily automate your email campaigns, so it won’t take up much of your time. The key to email marketing success is to ensure your content educates and engages with both current and future patients.

Don’t Forget About Direct Mail!

While email is an incredibly efficient way to communicate with your patients, it’s still easy for people to ignore an email. So, why not try sending out “Welcome to the Practice” letters to all new patients, or sending birthday cards to all your patients. Personal touches like this will help you keep your patients happy—and happy patients are much more likely to refer you to their friends and family.

Market Your Practice on Facebook

With more than 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is a powerful marketing tool you can use to promote your practice – for free. However, a lot of healthcare providers don’t give their Facebook business page much thought after the initial set-up. Many people don’t realize it’s a great way to engage with patients – for example, you can post a “Fitness Challenge” and ask people to post a picture to show they’ve completed it. Facebook helps you hear what your current (and future) patients have to say and helps them feel more connected to you. And it’s the ultimate way to get word-of-mouth referrals.

Build Your Online Reputation

Today, people often use online reviews as a first step to find a new doctor. Unfortunately, they typically focus on the bad reviews more than the good. So, tobuild (and manage) your online reputation, you need to embrace online ratings and reviews. Ask your patients to rate you: add a clickable link to your website, send an email request, or keep a tablet at the front desk where patients can review you before they leave your office. Ideally, you want new reviews every week to build up your total volume of positive reviews. In time, and with enough positive reviews, your ratings will rise to the top in any online search despite a few (inevitable) critical reviews.

Medical professionals work with iHealthSpot because they know they need a full-service digital marketing partner that can support the unique needs of their healthcare practice. From award winning medical website design and proprietary patient education content, to online marketing including social media and reputation management, we enable medical practices to market themselves using proven online and offline marketing strategies.

If you are interested in learning more, contact us today, toll-free at (877) 709-0999 for your FREE consultation with our marketing experts today!

Social media marketing for healthcare professionals

Do you know how to get the most out of social media for your business? In the healthcare industry, it may seem like social media is optional, but truly, social media marketing is essential for all industries if you ask me.

Nowhere else on the web can you interact with prospective and existing patients like you can on Facebook and Twitter, which is why more companies around the globe are investing in social media marketing.

Facebook is highly social, which is good for business. People tend to tell stories, share inspiring images, quotes, and checklists, talk about news headlines, and express their satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with local businesses. Facebook users also like to engage in contests – photo contests, general sweepstakes, and much more.

So why is Facebook good for business? If someone recommends your services to a friend on Facebook, it has the power of a word-of-mouth referral times 10. Why? People who are friends with your happy patients will discover your practice without the influence of an ad. Google also favors websites that have a lot of organic traffic, so Facebook can actually boost your search engine rank. Same goes for some other social platforms, namely Twitter and Google +.

If you do Facebook right, it can be one of the least expensive and most effective marketing strategies you use this year.

If you do want to invest in Facebook ads, the iHealthSpot marketing team can help you target those ads specifically to people you want as patients.

Facebook (and Twitter) ads can be targeted to people of a certain age, profession or job title, city/state, and many other demographics that are captured in social media profiles. This is not possible on any other marketing platforms, like radio, TV, or print ads. Because of this, many companies are putting more money into their marketing budget for social media. In fact, some businesses are putting social media at the foundation of their marketing plan to drive growth. To get the most out of your social media marketing budget, it pays to hire a professional unless you have someone on staff who can dedicated a minimum of 5-10 hours per week to social efforts.

A social media marketing strategy should include enough time (and financial resources) to research your target audience, create a social media campaign (and content) that will speak to your audience, execute that campaign, foster engagement and generate a buzz about your brand during the campaign, and analyze the results. A social marketing professional will know how to use the latest technology and online tools to maximize your return on investment (ROI). Unfortunately, only a small portion (< 5%) of your Facebook fans will see your posts in their news feed, but an expert can help boost your visibility on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google +.

Still not convinced the healthcare industry doesn’t need social media marketing? Consider these statistics from hubspot.

42% of marketers say Facebook is critical or important to their business. (State of Inbound Marketing, 2012)

The number of businesses that say Facebook is critical or important to their business has increased by 75%. (State of Inbound Marketing, 2012)

62% of marketers said social media became more important to the marketing campaigns in the last 6 months. (State of Inbound Marketing, 2012)

Social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing. (State of Inbound Marketing, 2012)

80% of US social network users prefer to connect to brands through Facebook. (State of Inbound Marketing, 2012)

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